Spread Your Legs for Uncle Sam

For all of the political fighting in Washington over defunding the Affordable Care Act, a pair of jarring new anti-Obamacare ads shows that some leading opponents have shifted their focus to sabotaging the law once it’s in place.

The spots feature a creepy, clownish Uncle Sam character performing gynecological and prostate exams on patients who signed up for insurance under the ACA. “Don’t let the government play doctor. Opt out of Obamacare,” the ads tell viewers. Not surprisingly, they’ve gone viral.

The canny bit of marketing is part of a reported $750,000 campaign by Generation Opportunity, an anti-Obamacare group backed by the billionaire conservative donors Charles and David Koch, to convince young adults that their best option is to remain uninsured once the health care law kicks in next year.

What’s most notable about the ads – besides the unfortunately positioned patriotic symbol – is who they target. Young adults are crucial to the ACA’s success. The law’s state-based health insurance marketplaces, called exchanges, will keep premiums affordable only if enough young, healthy people sign up for coverage to offset the cost of insuring older and sicker enrollees. The White House has said the exchanges will need to enroll 2.7 million healthy 18-25-year-olds to remain solvent.

According to Yahoo! News, Generation Opportunity is planning a series of campaigns on college campuses, replete with a game that includes a “Wheel of Misery” and “informative palm cards,” as a counter-effort to groups working to enroll young people in the exchanges. Generation Opportunity’s staff is packed with conservative recent college graduates and some more experienced political hands, including a failed 2012 congressional candidate from Pennsylvania and a former vice president of Americans United for Life.

Some young people could spend less by paying a penalty for not having insurance under Obamacare than what it will cost to buy coverage. But new federal subsidies will dramatically cut the cost of coverage for individuals earning up to about $44,000 per year and low-cost, high-deductible plans often favored by the young and healthy will be available to those under 30. Older Americans, by contrast, will need more comprehensive coverage to avoid paying federal fines for not having insurance.

Persuading younger, generally healthy people that they don’t need insurance is an acknowledgment by conservatives that their only true hope of sinking Obamacare is to try and make it function poorly. House Republicans are poised to pass a stopgap spending measure this week that will tie funds to keep the government running to a measure that would defund Obamacare. With the Senate under Democratic control, the effort amounts to little more than political theater. Campaigns like Generation Opportunity’s represent the real new front in the fight over Obamacare: persuading young people to opt in or out.

BOTH sides are full of lies. What is the truth is that forcing everyone to "purchase" and "take part" in some kind of healthcare services industry (Obamacare is NOT national healthcare) where you are MANDATED to BUY a product or service, is a genuine RACKET.

The Koch brothers should consider that despite a bump in premiums in this group, this caterwalling is not going to work because 1) 18-26 year olds can now be covered under their parent's policies and all of them I know are (many parents pick up the tab) 2) Not every 27-35 year old is hitchhiking from party to party, many or most have started families and would not think of not having health insurance and 3) if they do not make enough money they can now get a subsidized rate and4) the bump applies to individual plans, which currently only amount to about 5% of all plans. But out of the entire 900 page law you have found something to condemn and complain about. Never mind that Obamacare does not hire doctors, just requires that insurance be carried to pay them. Oh the assault on our liberties!

The Koch brothers are the a bane to America, a couple of Mr. Potters (It's a Wonderul Life) looking out myopically over the plantation, annoyed that the little people will eat their fortunes and imbibing in a twisted philosophy that makes their avarice laudable. They will go down in history like this, as jokes trying to return us to the era of the robber barons.

The Koch brothers certainly don't need insurance either. But I'll bet they'd sign on for any 'government freebies' they could get. 'A penny saved is a penny earned' - and that's how you get to be a billionaire, see?

"Patriotic" Republicans think that loving America means not wanting to pay taxes, smaller government (except in the important stuff like what happens between consenting adults behind closed doors), and generally not sacrificing anything at all. But it is VERY IMPORTANT to chant "USA! USA! USA!" very loudly and tell people who don't like their selfish and uncompromising stance to live someplace else (like Saudi Arabia or Russia, which oddly enough have exactly the same kinds of laws that they want).

With a program that now classifies fishing tackle as "medical devices" and taxes them appropriately, and threatens fines for for those who can't navigate a non-functioning $634 Million sign-up site...what can possibly go wrong?

As Michael Moore promises us, Health care will now pay for itself, (and then some) by being run more efficiently by the gov. Look at Medicare...Social Security...etc.

These self-supposed patriots on one hand complain that young people don't show respect for their parents and public institutions. On the other they contemptuously ridicule Uncle Sam to achieve their selfish goals. They act more like America haters from what I can see.

This time, we got the following crossword puzzle clue : Uncle Sam, say that also known as Uncle Sam say 5 letters . First, we gonna look for more hints to the Uncle Sam, say crossword puzzle . Then we will collect all the require information and for solving Uncle Sam say crossword . In the final, we get all the possible answers for the this crossword puzzle definition. Here are other similar crossword definitions:

Ohhh the irony, on one hand you point out who the ads target, young presumably healthy people. Then you go on to say the ACA only remains affordable if these people join.

So in essence you are saying that the ACA requires enrollment from people who don't need it. That is to say you need these young healthy people to join in and pay in so that the money gained there can pay for the unhealthy people on the other end of the age bracket.

You make a compelling case yourself for these people to stay away from ACA.

You say it yourself, in order to keep ACA affordable you require the enrollment of 2.7million people who don't need it. I'd further posit that there is a strong correlation between your current health status and your near term future need for health insurance. So of those 2.7M there will only be a very small potential for benefit from this plan, say from a car accident or some unknown cause. Maybe you were paid by the Kochs to come on here and write this article to keep these people away?

Billionaires with spare change wanting to sway people's minds while they sit in the lap of luxury counting their coins. Remember that next time you buy a product from a business or listen to a Billionaire's opinion, they'll be happy to use you as a pawn, tell you what to think and do, because how you respond impacts the bottom line of how much money they can make and as such how much power they have.

They have been outed for paying people to post comments in their favor on these very comment sections. How many corporate scandals of greed and deception have to be communicated for us to put restrictions on the maniacal power of the super wealthy...think Koch, think Bloomberg and ask yourself if you want those guys regulating your freedoms or watching out for your best interest...just because they have the money to tilt the argument. Want a big gulp, not according to Bloomberg, want to choose your own religion? Consider your options.

No one was more vehemently opposed to National Health Insurance than theAmerican Medical Association was in the late 1940s when Truman proposed Compulsory Health Insurance.

Socialized medicine or anything that even looked or smelled like socializedmedicine
have long given the Republicans and businessmen the chills and fever,
and no expense was spared to make sure it never happened.

This advertising campaign proves that the Koch Brothers have absolute contempt for 99.9 percent of humanity (in other words, people who have less money than them). This is the most cynical thing I've ever seen.

What's interesting about this ad is that it's the Republicans who are interjecting themselves between a woman and her gynecologist. Every time I see this ad it reminds me of what's REALLY happening here.

I have had a hernia operation, broken my right arm, two of my fingers, had my tonsils out, 10+ stitches in total, 6+ x-rays, chicken pox and multiple checkups. Its doesnt cost me a penny as I pay taxes on earnings and council tax. But I am british, I can't see why you guys can't just create a NHS style system and stop arguing.

Over here if you can afford it you can go privat, its quicker and sometimes better, but always more expensive. You still have to pay the same taxes though as you would if you didn't.

Air pollution in the US is much reduced from 20 years ago. Crime is reducing. Live expectancy in the US is increasing. Health insurance is different from health care. If you ever get sick and you don't have health insurance, OBAMACARE provides that you must be accepted whenever you sign up, no matter what the preexisting condition. Federal law requires that if you go to an emergency room you must be treated, despite any inability to pay.

In many cases, the smart thing to do in the age of Obamacare is to pay the tax, and if you ever get sick enough to justify very expensive insurance, just sign up then.

@HenryT2 Why would I want to pay taxes to provide benefits to others? That's what the Democrats have done with the most progressive tax rates in history. Lower income pay nothing, or almost nothing in taxes, yet receive all the taxpayer funded benefts., Then act as if the people paying all the taxes don't pay enough.

We've lost the concept of shared sacrifice. Everyone needs "skin in the game".

Conservative Americans know that federal departments of Agriculture, Labor, Energy, HHS, HUD, Education are unconstitutional and should be shut down. It is very important for the federal government to be restricted to its few and legal roles.

As for perversion between consenting adults in the bedroom, I may have personal contempt and disgust for those who do it, but certainly no conservative holds that it is the federal government duty to police such behavior. The pretense that conservatives hold that perversion in the bedroom between consenting adults should be policed by the federal government is a lie, and you told it.

@HenryT2 How come conservatives who lay claim to the notion of 'fiscal responsibility', create nothing but larger public debt? If you can't pay for it, you owe it. Even welfare moms know that - if they can get credit. With the rich, not paying is often a choice - and a court case.

@HenryT2 And patriotic democrats think that loving America means taking the motivation out of working so that they don't pay taxes and don't care how much taxes rise. It's a stand off between the givers and the takers. Just like the Suni and Shiite Muslims, we will fight about this until we kill each other.

One thing for sure, don't kill the Republicans because you'll kill your livelihood. Ask the voters in Detroit what happens when the taxpayers move out.

@elegiac I am disgusted at the entitled bunch of moochers this nation has become. Led by our "moocher in chief" trying to belittle and extort successful business owners with the "you didn't build that" mindset.

@parexerus Don't kid yourself. The best way to maintain health (which ps is what ultimately costs the government and everyone else much less) is to see your doctor regularly. Getting these young healthy people to join ACA is essential for not only the health of the act itself but the young population of the US. Preventative care is the best care. It is more cost-effective and is frankly what separates a first-world country from third-world countries.

People don't need health care?? What???? I don't even understand how someone can claim that because one is healthy, they do not need healthcare. You do realize than health changes over time, right?

After WWII WAGE CONTROLS government allowed businesses to use benefits like health
insurance as a means of luring workers, the government turned a blind eye to
the practice and then offered certain tax benefits for continuing the practice.
The current system allows those with private insurance to subsidize those with
Medicare and Medicaid. The employer market has been the primary method of
obtaining health insurance in this country. Its strength lies in the effective
sharing of risk among individuals. Unfortunately, labor market pressures and
rising medical care inflation have weakened this system. In a weak labor
market, workers may lose their jobs or be forced to take jobs without benefits
and lose their already tenuous connection to the employer-provided health
insurance system. Furthermore, by pushing workers out of the employer system
and into the public one, employers are shifting the cost of insuring their
workers onto taxpayers. To hear the Democrats tell it, the
Republicans are happy with the health-care system we have: all they do is stand
in the way of Democratic improvements. But the truth is that it’s the
Republicans make more radical
proposals. They want to make a break with more than six decades of government
policy of World War II workers health benefits giving tax
breaks for employer-provided health insurance; getting tax breaks if you get your insurance through your
job. If you get a raise and use it to buy your own insurance instead, you have
to pay taxes on that money. (Ditto if you use your raise to pay doctors
directly.) Almost everyone takes the tax break. The market for insurance bought
by individuals is, as a result, small and stunted, which is all the more reason
to stay in the employer system. Republicans
used to consider health care a Democratic issue, not something they needed to
do anything or even think much about. But in recent years, most Republicans
have come to believe that our health-care system is dysfunctional because it is
employer-based and that this dysfunction has to be attacked at the root.

Fortunately we have good medical care in the US as opposed to the waiting lists in the UK and Canada. When you compare outcomes, your odds are better if you get sick in the US compared to the denial of care that comes for serious diseases or conditions in the UK.

@idolmoney Unfortunately I live in a country that values money over people. It's the capitalistic way. If a bunch of self-important people don't make a bunch of money, then my country thinks we're doing it wrong. How dare we demand healthcare at a reasonable price. That's offensive! The same people who claim to love Jesus just voted out food for our poorest citizens. It's shameful, stupid, and (most ironic) more costly, but they're not paying the bill in the end so they don't care.

In an entry above you, DonMeaker, mention that air pollution has been reduced in the US (perhaps with the exception of your hot air). Who do you think accomplished that? The Federal government. No, you did not mention EPA as one of the unconstitutional units that should be shut down, but most of your right sided brethren lump them in with the same list you did. Similar improvements in our way of life has been championed by the agencies you mention. Or I suppose it just happened eh?

Detroit failed not because of taxation. It died because of the constant off shoring and outsourcing that the auto industry started to save money, combined with the "right to work" idiot states giving away billions in tax incentives for auto companies to build low wage factories.

You are obviously out of touch. Medicare and Social Security are also bust. They are run by the same people as run Obamacare: They are tax programs to gain money for the US government workers to spend, which were justified by promises which can not now be kept.

I don't know how many more broken promises I can stand from the right wing either: Just a few starters: "term limits", Newt. WMD, Bush. "Mission accomplished" Bush. "Read my lips", Bush elder. Oil will pay for the war, Cheney.

@DonMeaker Ummm no. US is ranked 38th by WHO compared to UK at 18 and Canada at 30. You're better off getting sick in the UK than the US, on average. If you're rich in both places, your outcomes are arguably the same because you can afford that "best" doctor and "immediate solutions".

The US healthcare system sucks, especially when you consider that we spend more per capital on health than any other country in the world. There are a number of reasons for this which consistently point back to our country having no unified healthcare system.

US healthcare is not as great as we wish it was. We need to get over ourselves.

@notLostInSpace Detroit lost it's monopoly on the auto interest, but unfortunately not all the legacy costs of government. Detroit should have been more financially conservative and maybe the downturn of the auto industry wouldn't have killed it.

So, what is your source of information that Social security is bust and that is is "run by the same people as run Obamacare"? Just wondering what right wing talk show you got that from. SS is not bust, and a few tweaks by a Congress that is not held by terrorists would solve their future problems, but don't let reality hit you. Medicare does have some problems, as does the WEBSITE for ACA. Government runs the WEBSITE, not the insurers. We will all get to continue our great insurers who can't now give companies and individuals regularly correct billing statements and benefit payments.